Google and Microsoft bringing Kill Switch

Google and Microsoft agreed to provide Kill Switch in the next version of their smartphone operating systems. And this is may happen sooner than later. This feature will disable the smartphone making it unusable. Hopefully this would help smartphone owners to safeguard their personal data and hard earned money spent on these costly devices from thefts.

According to sources, Microsoft has signed up with CTIA's Smartphone Anti-Theft Voluntary Commitment in April and planning to bring this feature before the previously set deadline of July 2015.

In a blog post from Mr. Fred Humphries, Vice President of U.S. Government Affairs for Microsoft, it is confirmed that this feature will be given to all Windows Phone 8.0 & newer. Although the availability will depend on approval from phone manufacturers and mobiles operators. Those new features will enhance the already present "Find My Phone" feature to enable the user for remote deletion of personal data from smartphone. It will also allow the owners to brick the phone except for the ability to call emergency services. This feature will stop the stolen device to be used by reactivating without the consent of owner and also will help in restoring the data from cloud if the smartphone is recovered.  More and actual features will be announced at the time of actual release.

Google confirmed to Bloomberg recently that it will add a “factory reset protection solution” to the next version of Android.

This announcement from Google and Microsoft comes after Apple introduced the Kill Switch in iOS 7 and as a result has shown a significant fall in theft of iPhones upto 19% less in New York and 24% in London.

How do our readers think about this Kill Switch will it be beneficial to users or there are any cons about this, let us know in below comments section.